Danny Boyle has insisted he is “very responsible” about his use of artificial intelligence (AI) and would never use the technology in place of an actor.
Danny Boyle has insisted he is “very responsible” about his use of artificial intelligence (AI).
The 69-year-old director previously admitted to using “about 30 seconds” of generative AI in Ink – which follows Rupert Murdoch’s attempts to make The Sun a must-read and a rival to the Daily Mirror, leading to the rise of British tabloid journalism – and he has now stressed that he would never use the technology to replace live actors in a scene.
Speaking during a post-screening Q+A session at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), Danny said: “We used a tiny amount of it. It’s very much linked with VFX in our world; it’s one of the tools they use in the VFX.
“We try to be very responsible and make sure no actors were out of work because of it, so we would always employ actors if we were going to use a bit of it. There was about 30 seconds of it.”
Danny believes it is important to have discussions about the broader implications of AI but felt it was too “huge and complicated” a subject to delve into during the session.
He added: “The wider question of it and its place in our society of course, including our profession, is a huge and complicated one which I don’t think we can probably go into here, but we will need to go into it, all of us.”
The director previously confirmed he had used AI in Ink.
Following speculation AI had been used to reanimate old images of the Kray twins and former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Danny told Vanity Fair at the Telluride Film Festival: “There’s about 30 seconds of it in our movie where we animate a couple of old photographs.
“Oh, and there’s some mice. It’s very good for animals, and we had some mice that run around The Sun newsroom.”
The Trainspotting director insisted his opinion of the use of AI in films shouldn’t matter, though he admitted he thinks it can be a “very useful tool” if used in the right way.
He said: “It doesn’t really matter what I think about AI. It matters what 20 year olds think about it. Is the honest truth.
“My opinion of it is that it’s a very useful tool in many ways, provided you use it respectfully and provided you pay actors if you’re going to replace them with some kind of AI embodiment.”
Earlier this month, Danny had voiced his concerns about the rise of AI and its impact on certain areas, including journalism.
Speaking during a press conference for Ink at the Venice Film Festival, he said: “The danger with the tech giants and their AI is that they will be able to replace journalism. They’ll be able to have an AI journalist who’s much more efficient, cheaper, etcetera, etcetera, and will that AI journalist speak truth to the power that created it?”
According to the logline, Ink is “an explosive cinematic rollercoaster about a group of visionaries and misfits who had an idea for a new kind of news – one that would give the people what they want and would change the face of the world we live in today.”
Danny Boyle ‘very responsible’ about use of AI
